Let me begin this review with the following statement: we began this cruise with the lowest of expectations. We are seasoned cruisers and have enjoyed our cruise vacations on most the major lines. This was our first cruise with NCL. We had a 34th anniversary coming up, and I found the perfect length cruise, over the perfect dates, and at quite a perfect price; so on a whim we booked it. THEN I logged onto Cruise Critic to learn more about the ship, excursions, ports and so forth. What I discovered was a firestorm of negatives about the Norwegian Sky: No AC...overflowing toilets...terrible service...etc. After reading several days of postings, it seemed to me that NCL was attempting to fix the problems with the ship.

Still - we resolved to have a great time no matter what! We arrived at the new NCL terminal in Miami at about 11:30 am. Embarkation was painless; we were greeted on the ship with glasses of sparkling wine, and by 12:15 we were seated in the Palace Dining Room having lunch. What a pleasure this was! This is the first ship that I have been on that actually offers a sit-down, served lunch after embarkation. The menu was varied and delicious. I certainly didn't miss the usual first day crush around the buffet.

Item two on our agenda was to begin our tour of the ship. We had picked up ship layouts as we checked in, so we began to familiarize ourselves with the layout. Sky is not a large ship, but is has some very nice places to gather. We especially liked the Outrigger Lounge forward on Deck 11 and Captain Cook's Bar, midships on Deck 6. The pool area seemed small in comparison to other ships. There are two pools and one is designated as adults only - however, there were always children. I guess NCL Sky's "children cruise free" was most evident poolside. But since we are from FL, sunbathing poolside is not high on our list - so it was not a problem. The buffet areas are also quite small - although the times we ate there - the food was quite good. My DH loves smoked salmon - and found salmon on the breakfast buffet as well as the dining rooms. Read more